When My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Our Unborn Son

The video call came through while I was logging fetal development notes. Week twenty-four. Lungs forming. Eyelids still fused.

Veronica's face filled my laptop screen.

"Sawyer!" She sounded delighted. "I'm so glad I caught you."

She angled the camera down. Her dress was fitted. Cream colored. The bump was impossible to miss.

Six months.

Maybe more.

"I wanted to share the news personally," she said. "Before you heard it from someone else."

I didn't move. My pen was still touching the page. Week twenty-four, I'd written. Lungs forming.

"Congratulations to both of us." She cradled the bump with both hands. The gesture looked practiced. "We're due so close together. Won't that be something?"

I did the math automatically. Researcher's habit. Her six months. My six months. The wedding was eight months ago. The video I'd deleted was six months ago. The night Everett came home with split knuckles and blood on his shirt was six months ago.

The night he swore he'd carved her out.

Veronica tilted her head. "You look pale. Are you feeling alright?"

"When?" My voice came out steady. That surprised me.

"When what?"

"When did it start again?"

Her smile didn't change. "Sawyer. It never stopped."

She ended the call.

I sat there looking at the black screen. At my own reflection in the dead laptop. I looked like someone I used to know.

I closed the research journal. Put it in the drawer. Got my keys.

The divorce papers were in my desk. I'd drafted them weeks ago. I wasn't sure why. Insurance, maybe. Something to hold onto when the floor felt unsteady.

I printed them. Signed my half. Put them in a folder.

The rain started before I reached the car.

Walker Enterprises was fifteen minutes away in good traffic. I made it in twelve. The parking garage was half empty. I took the visitor spot near the elevator. I'd stopped using the executive level months ago. It felt like trespassing.

The elevator took forever. Mirrored walls. Soft classical music. I watched myself rise through the building. Fortieth floor. Forty-first. Forty-second.

The executive corridor was quiet. Thick carpet. Recessed lighting. I'd walked it a hundred times. Brought him lunch. Surprised him with coffee. Let him pull me into his office and lock the door and press me against the desk while the city glittered below us.

I stopped outside his door.

It was closed. Locked.

I heard her voice through it. Veronica's. Laughing. The sound was bright and easy and intimate in a way that made my stomach turn.

Then Everett. Lower. I couldn't make out the words. Just the tone. Warm. Amused.

I stood there and counted. One. Two. Three. I made it to eleven.

Then I turned around.

The elevator doors opened immediately. Like they'd been waiting. I stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor. The divorce papers were still in the folder. Still unsigned on his half.

I'd come back for that. Later. When I could think.

The rain was heavier when I reached the street. I didn't have an umbrella. I walked to the car and got in and sat there while water drummed against the roof.

My phone buzzed. Everett. Calling.

I turned the phone face down.

I started the car. Pulled out of the garage. The wipers couldn't keep up with the rain. The windshield blurred and cleared and blurred again.

I wasn't crying. I was sure I wasn't crying.

But my face was wet.

The light at the intersection was green. I thought it was green. The delivery truck came from the right. I saw it for maybe half a second. Blue paint. Company logo. Then impact.

The world flipped sideways.

Glass everywhere. Metal screaming. My seatbelt locked across my chest so hard I couldn't breathe. The airbag hit my face. Powder and chemical smell and my ears ringing.

Then voices. Hands on the door. Someone saying ma'am. Someone saying pregnant. Someone saying we need to move her now.

The sky was gray above me. Rain on my face. Cold.

I pressed my hand against my stomach.

"The baby," I said. "Please."

"We've got you," someone said. "Stay with us."

The ambulance siren sounded far away. Then close. Then inside my head.

The ER was white lights and fast voices and people in scrubs cutting my clothes away. Someone put an IV in my arm. Someone else pressed an ultrasound wand against my belly.

"Fetal heartbeat present," a woman said. "But we've got bleeding. Get me progesterone. And start the anti-hemorrhagic protocol. Now."

I tried to sit up. Hands pushed me back down.

"Mrs. Walker. You need to stay still."

"The baby—"

"We're doing everything we can."

Someone injected something into my IV. The room started to soften at the edges.

"We've contacted your husband," a nurse said. "He's on his way."

I closed my eyes.

Everett was coming.

Of course he was.